Spec. Plant Willd. ii. 1226. Cl. 13. Ord. 3. Polyandria Tryginia. Nat. ord. Ranunculaceae. G. 1061. Cal. none. Pet. five. Nect. bifid, horned behind. Pods three or one. * * Three capsuled. Species 13. D. Staphisagria.2 Staves-acre. Med. Dot. 3d edit.

471. t. 168. Officinal. Staphisagria, Lond. Delphinii Staphisagriae semina, Edin. Dub. Staves-acre seeds.

Syn. Staphisagre (F.), Stephanskraut laus-korner (G.), Luiskruid (Dutch), Lunsurt (Dan.), Staffans fro (Swed.), Gnidosz ziele (Polish), Stafisagria (I.), Piojera (S.), Alvarraz (Portug.).

This species of larkspur is a biennial plant, a native of the south of Europe, flowering from June to August. It is a handsome plant, from one to two feet in height, with a downy, erect, purplish, simple stem, and palmated leaves, the lobes of which are five or seven in number, of a pale green colour, oblong, ovate, and sometimes acutely indented. The flowers are of a blue or purplish colour, in an open terminal spike, and supported on long flower-stalks; the uppermost petal projected backwards so as to form a hollow spur, which encloses two spurs of the superior leaflets of the nectary. The filaments are about twenty, and short, bearing large yellow anthers: the germens three, close together, tapering, downy, and crowned with short filiform styles, having simple stigmas. The seeds are rough, brown, triangular, and contained in straight oblong capsules. They are usually imported from Italy; for although the plant is occasionally raised in our gardens 3, yet it is difficult to preserve it through the winter so as to enable it to perfect its seed.

1 The red central flowers of the umbels have been extolled in epilepsy.

Dioscoridis.

3 It was first cultivated in Ensrland by Gerard in 1596.

Qualities.-Staves-acre seeds have very little odour, but that little is disagreeable: their taste is bitter, acrid, and hot. They are yellowish within, and covered with a rough blackish cuticle. Their virtues are partially extracted by water, and completely by alcohol. MM. Lassaigne and Feneulle discovered that their active properties depend on a peculiar alkaline principle, which they named Delphine or Delphia. It is found in the plant in the state of an oxalate. It is a white crystalline powder, inodorous, acrid and bitter to the taste. When heated it melts like wax, and again hardens on cooling; and in a high temperature burns, leaving a little charcoal. It is scarcely soluble in cold water, but very soluble in alcohol. It unites with acids forming neutral salts: its acetate is a virulent poison. Delphia, in a separate state, exerts violent poisonous properties, in very small doses; acting chiefly on the nervous system. To procure it, boil the powdered seeds in distilled water, and press through a cloth. Filter the decoction, and boil it for a few minutes with pure magnesia: re-filter and boil the residuum left on the filter with alcohol; and, lastly, cautiously evaporate the solution.

A white powder is obtained, which is Delphia. It consists of 76.60 parts of carbon +8.89 of hydrogen+ 5.93 nitrogen+ 7.49 oxygenm 100.00.

Medical properties and itses. - These seeds are emetic and cathartic, but their operation is so violent that they are never internally administered. Owing to their stimulating powerfully the salivary gland, when chewed, they have been used as a masticatory in toothach; but they are chiefly employed in powder, mixed with hair-powder, for destroying pediculi of the head.